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. ∗ ∗ ∗ The successive growth-stages of my infancy, childhood, youth and manhood were all pass'd on Long

–49) and I split off with the Radicals, which led to rows with the boss and 'the party,' and I lost my

And then such lapses as these: By my great oak—sturdy, vital, green—give feet thick at the butt.

An hour or so after breakfast I wended my way down to the recesses of the aforesaid dell ∗ ∗ ∗ It was

just the place and time for my Adamic air-bath and flesh-brushing from head to foot.

he is my old boss." Adding: "Evarts was a very kind, friendly fellow." In the literary way?

Germantown, Sunday night,March 3d, 1889.My dear Traubel:Now that you and Doctor Bucke are gone I have

My God! but he's a time-taker: he's slower'n pitch on a frosty morning!

My lameness is very bad, and I am very exhausted before many hours pass each day.

of the bowels, and must, under medical orders, resort to artificial means, and this is my remedy.

.: "Nor have I: but the 'chaps,' as he calls them, often come and report me so—put words into my mouth

I said: "To my inquiry as to who wrote that fine piece there about you." W.: "Oh yes!

My address is the Daily News office.Truly yours,Francis M.

W. seemed to think my question amusing.

We are back home and I am busy about my farm work.

'Well, my young smithkin, you don't believe that? you dissent from that?' 'Yes, I do.' 'Ah!

I have asked myself in the face of criticism of my own work: 'Should I reply—should I expose, denounce

But my final conviction has always been that there is no better reply than silence.

While I am working in my shop the very wood seems written all over with them.

He seems to be very genuine.I send you my last essay—on Ouida. Have you read her Tricotrin?

CAROL OF OCCUPATIONS. 1 COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess!

Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my

become so for your sake; If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my

are; I am this day just as much in love with them as you; Then I am in love with you, and with all my

List close, my scholars dear!

To Workingmen TO WORKINGMEN. 1 COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess;

Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my

become so for your sake; If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my

are; I am this day just as much in love with them as you; Then I am in love with you, and with all my

List close, my scholars dear!

My impressions were written on the next day, and my memory has been vividly refreshed.

He walked with bared head to my desk and laid one in my hand, saying: Please tell Mr.

The voice caught my ear.

on my desk.

My metre is loose and free.

"I don't know what it is—the weather, some meteoric influence, what—but I feel like the devil: my head

Bucke hilarious: "My God! has it come to this?"

I said: "That would not go in my pocket."

Bucke said: "My tailor is a pope: he does as he pleases." W. laughed over that.

W. gave me a letter for my "data chest" as he called it.

1 O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!

change of the light and shade, I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my

see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for me, This is not my

race; I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race; I see ranks, colors, barbarisms

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through; I have taken my stand on the

From the first I found it necessary to systematize my doings, and, among other things, always kept little

note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances and what

But before entering on my personal memoranda of the war, I have one or two thoughts to ventilate before

ABRAHAM LINCOLN—MY FIRST SIGHT AND IMPRESSION OF HIM.

It reads: 'I cannot survive the loss of the liberties of my country.'") THE EVE OF A LONG WAR.

men and their maneuvers that I was now gazing An invalid-looking man came slowly up the hill while my

The man, at my request, showed me one of the globules which he was in the habit of taking daily.

I shall remember that dinner to my dying day. We pulled up stakes, and put for home.

I made my bed in the furled sail, watching the stars as they twinkled, and falling asleep so.

An indescribable serenity pervaded my mind—a delicious abnegation of the ties of the body.

O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! Such sights and sounds!

change of the light and shade, I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my

see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for me, This is not my

race, I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race, I see ranks, colors, barbarisms

My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have looked for equals

1 O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!

change of the light and shade, I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my

see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for me, This is not my

race; I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race; I see ranks, colors, barbarisms

F2 I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through; I have taken my stand on

—though I doubt if you can catch a good 200 lbs., which I believe I still weigh, in spite of my emaciation

then to my affirmative response: "If I keep on in this way I shall by and by have a Hebrew clientage—and

And he said still again: "And all my Hebrew friends are turning out to be among the young—you would call

Immediately on my entrance, almost, he spoke of a volume he took up in his hands—Roden Noel's "Essays

W. much enjoyed my story, exclaiming: "That's John Bull—that's the bull of him—supercilious, disdainful—thinks

—and as a general thing they go right: though it goes against my grain to send off a letter or what not

as he is—calling my attention to some of the portraits—particularly Schiller's—saying of this—"What a

I laughed at the glow, but told W. what had been the substance of my letter: then asking him: "Don't

shall drink very little myself—it would not do—only enough to taste—to be satisfied it is right—that my

Even at the last, when an answer was given to my question, it was still so indefinite I could not make

it out—do not know to this day if my 8 dollars were actually received.

I have often struggled to say that, in my own way, but a less way." Friday, January 10, 1890

Questioning me of Lumholz—I promised sometime in my leisure to give him an account of curious bits of

It is so with me—I have stuck and stuck—through a something within me which my enemies would think hopeless

previous poems of the then contemporaneous—"You are quite right there—I am fully convinced on that point—my

He afterwards added in a similar strain: "I have read my own Century piece over today, and like it well—am

But my aim has been, to so subordinate that, no one could know it existed—as in fine plate glass one

My determination being to make the story of man, his physiological, emotional, spiritual, self, tell

Dear son, I am sitting here in my room home, alone—it is snowing hard & heavy outside, & cold & wintry

—I have attended to the bringing out the new edition of my book, but as the plates were all ready before

fire—here now I am not like I am in Washington—you would laugh to see me hovering over the fire)— —My

From the moment my eye rested on the Dr I made up my mind that he was a fool, a regular Doctor.

failing very rapidly indeed, he is a mere shadow of what he ought to be and I have not the least doubt in my

been bothered considerably with some sort of a rash which broke out in blotches nearly as large as my

hand all over my arms and body  it burns very bad, the Doctor said it was the effects of the heat, and

My Love to all.

(about 20) April 1869 My dear Walt i got you to day today with the enveloves envelopes and money all

much use to get a high salary) walt this is great writin writing but i have had to work so hard that my

in these days they Walt so its best not to make any calcalation calculation good bie walter Walter my

Now my lectures are over I am spending the summer helping in the garden and any odd jobs about the place—and

—I can't keep my fingers off it—but still that takes only a small fraction of the week & leaves plenty

These friends that I have here and my more natural open air life seem to have made a difference to me

Here it is a call for help, an invocation, a word Whitman actually uses ("as now to thee I launch my

prepares for old age and death, as his images may hint: "Prepare the later afternoon of me myself—prepare my

lengthening shadows / Prepare my starry nights."

The only object which my predecessor could have had in referring the subject to the U. S.

Attorney, and to give that officer the instructions contained in my letter to him.

Of course whatever may be my interest as a citizen in the politics of the South generally, and of Alabama

I am unable at this distance, and with my limited information to determine whether the transactions in

I have marked in my note book 'rec'd'"—spelling it out—"and no doubt for good reason."

I have told you about my Chihuahua experience.

"I keep my troubles on a field I can control," he said, jokingly, "remembering the doctor who, called

s late work lacked in the poetic, "So does it all, that was one of the hardest jobs in my early life—to

Clean er shaved and more grammatical folks I call Mister, and lay the tips of my fingers inside their

headline in the morning papers, and pass the time as comfortably as the law allows.— But for the others, my

THEE for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night, Thy madly-whistled laughter

THEE for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night, Thy madly-whistled laughter

boiling lobster, and wrote as follows to one of his daughters: "The sun-stroke is a staggerer; yet my

Were it not for others, would that my horn had been sounded—so easy, so delightful I may say, was the

Louis, July 31st 188 5 My dear Walt— I enclose a check for ten dollars payable to your order—the money

say the heat was greater on the street level than it has been since 1838—it was 102 in the shade at my

"Liberty" (Tucker's paper) for a very good little memoriam of Wm O'Connor, by my young friend Traubel

address)— I hear from Dr Bucke often—he is well & busy at his Institution, London, Canada—I hear f'm my

felt and displayed, practicaly practically the warmest sympathy for her—Dr Rutherford had insisted on my

you of her sickness that it would worry you, but I consider her in extreme danger, and felt it to be my

The discussion after my paper, in which Sanborn took a main part, was full of interest, & there was a

general agreement with my position, & that part based on Leaves of Grass in especial.

called up on us with her Sister. she said was acquainted with your brothers family. her Sister lived in my

I got your Picture on Broadway near 28 st for my Friend Mrs Edward Smith the head of the C lothing Firm

[London, Ontario] 4 Dec [188]6 My dear Walt The "After All" parcel came to hand last evening to my great

and now this is my third epistle to you, so I shall claim a word from you when you are able to write.

My sister & Dr. Channing both ask for you with the greatest interest, & Jeannie , Mrs.

But yet I must exchange my token for yours—brazen for golden gifts, as the Greek poet said.

The misfortune of my poem is that it presupposes much knowledge of antiquity—as for instance that this

My life since we parted that July day upon the Treasury steps, has been one of hard work and little recreation

I have written so much of myself simply because you asked me of myself— My Dear Friend I hope and believe

I lost nearly half of my Co but we won the fight and the rebel loss was pretty heavy.

We have had the best of the fighting so far and its my opinion that Genl Grant has got Lee in a pretty

to here hear from you very much This leaves me well thank God but I have been sick most all winter my

wife is sick at presant present But the Lord has been good to me in past and I know if I put my trust

even though only in thought and by letter, though ere long I hope to see you face to face, for He, my

To thee I offer my affection, for that is all I can, but may we meet ere long. So long.

My sister the wife of Rev Dr Shields of Bristol is very very ill— She is one of the noblest and best

It is my sister Sallie. W m R.

ONTARIO London, Ont., 16 Dec 188 8 The books did not arrive last ev'g to my great disgust.

My chief interest now is the pat , I trust I shall hear tomorrow morning that you are easier Always your

greatest admiration for him and the magnificent way he has behaved all through—I hope it may be in my

power someday to show my appreciation of his excellent qualities in some practical way.

ONTARIO London, Ont., 17 Sept 188 8 Your letter of 10th with enclosures came during my absence in Sarnia

As soon as you know the publisher's name & city tell me then I can tell my English bookseller to look

snow—I write a few words to O'C every other day or so nothing further rec'd f'm there— Evn'g : have had my

of the best pictures ever made—Mr & Mrs: Harned paid me a nice visit this mn'g—(the madame is one of my

Whitman: "Because you have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually in my